By Christian Mullins
Executive Summary:
It seems that each day, there’s additional information regarding the mortgage market. And for every positive story, there’s five stories like this: U.S. home prices dropped 14.1% in the first quarter of 2008 compared to a year earlier. This is the sharpest drop since the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index was started in 1988. Las Vegas fared the worst of major cities, with home prices falling 25.9% over the past year, while Charlotte, North Carolina stayed above water with an increase in home prices of less than 1%.
Financial institutions may be missing their best opportunity to clear bad mortgages off the books before those homes go into foreclosure. Known as a short sale, a homeowner who cannot keep up with their payments asks the lender to take a dollar amount less than what is owed on a home’s mortgage, and forgive the remainder of the unpaid debt. While this isn’t an ideal situation for either side, lenders, on average, lose 19% of a mortgage’s value on a short sale but 40% on a foreclosure. Unfortunately, many short sales are stalled for months, and the home is foreclosed before the short sale is approved.
International Summary:
- Nothing to report today.
Robbed:
- RTP Federal Credit Union, Raleigh, North Carolina, Tuesday. Two men entered the branch at about 10:30am, wearing ski masks and carrying handguns. They demanded money and left without further incident. No one was injured.
Arrested, Arraigned, Charged, or Sentenced:
- A man in York, Pennsylvania was charged Saturday in the robbery of White Rose Credit Union in Springettsbury Township. Angel Manuel Pomales, 39, allegedly walked into the CU Friday and demanded money from a teller. No one was injured in the robbery.
- Former Jackson, Mississippi police officer Lawrence Epps, arrested for allegedly robbing Mississippi Employees FCU on April 25, had his bond reduced from $125,000 to $25,000. The lawyers for Epps and the State are currently debating whether he should be charged with robbery (maximum sentence of 15 years) or armed robbery (potential life sentence). No weapon was seen during the robbery, though he indicated that he was armed.
